St Gallen

Another day, another day trip. I took my in-laws up to St Gallen this week and it was simply stunning. Autumn in Switzerland can deliver these crisp, sunny days with amazing dark blue skies. It was warm in the sunshine but cool in the shade – perfect weather for sightseeing, really!

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We visited the Stiftsbibliothek – where no photos are allowed. I don’t quite know how to convey how awed I was by this place. Having studied Medieval History and medieval manuscripts at university, I felt quite moved to visit this ancient library. They had texts there from Charlemagne and the Bishop of Wurms – stuff I’d read about and written essays on! Seeing the illuminated scripts (under glass) in this environment really gave a wonderful impression of how it might have been as a monk back in the day in the presence of all these incredible books. I think I’m actually still processing what I saw and the enormity of it. Texts dating back to 800-900 – those early middle ages are such a fascinating time. Wow.

St Gallen is a small(ish) town in the mountains with a beautifully preserved medieval main square (Gallusplatz) encompassing a UNESCO world heritage site. In the old town centre, many buildings feature ornate oriel windows dating back to the late middle ages (shades of The Name of the Rose – a book I also read while at uni, thankfully at the time I knew the most Latin!). Apparently the oriel windows were a sign of wealth and St Gallen has some of the best/most examples of them around.

We also visited the cathedral/ the Dom. I’m always taken with just how different the impression you get of a church is from the outside compared to how it “feels” when you step in. This place was a serene, baroque fancy, all decked out in soft green-painted plasterwork and gold leaf. You get the feeling there’s still no shortage of cash in and around St Gallen! The green colour was reminiscent of copper roofs (which many churches have) or tree moss, so gave a lovely sense of the outdoors inside. And it was so light. Just beautiful.

I really enjoyed our trip to St Gallen (1.5hr by train from Oerlikon).

Rheinfall

I’ve had my in-laws here this month and we’ve done some great day trips so I thought I’d post a couple of photo blogs for the 3 people who read this that aren’t Foolbook friends…

This was our visit to the Rheinfall (Rhine Falls) – the largest waterfalls in Europe. Even at what is probably the lowest ebb of the year, the sheer volume of water was impressive. It would be amazing to go back in spring when all the snowmelt is pouring down! Also for 1 August (Swiss National Day), they have fireworks above the Rheinfall, which would be something to see!

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What will work?

Helvetiaplatz

I haven’t had much time for this blog lately. Life has definitely got in the way! It feels like a new chapter in my Zurich life is beginning – or maybe it’s already begun. And that chapter is loosely titled: Work

I’ve been doing bits and pieces of work for a while, of course. Maybe I never really stopped. I seem to remember submitting in a very scattered piece of writing the week before I gave birth (thankfully salvaged by a kind editor who was aware of the situation and forgave not being up to my usual standards!) and I’ve been chipping away at various things ever since. Including taking on quite a lot (too much!) freelance while Himself was away for a month. It kept me sane. Or rather, helped me feel insane in a reassuringly familiar way.

But now things seem to have ramped up a notch. The baby is 8 months this week (time flies!) and I’m ready to put some regular childcare in place and increase, or at least formalise, my workload.

But

What about those German classes? I did a few back-of-envelope calculations this week during some much-needed downtime (thanks to Himself and the in-laws being around) and, well… I find myself in a bit of a quandary. Assuming I can find a childcare place for the baby (I’m thinking half-days at this stage) should I use that time to work, or to learn?

Work it, baby

Work it, baby

Picking up my German studies again is something I’ve been trying to do since I stopped prior to our Australia trip last October. It’s been a year. Oddly, despite thinking I’m “going backwards” by forgetting some of what I learnt, I actually feel more confident to bust out some Deutsch lately. Maybe it’s just my brain is so full of other stuff I have to give less fucks about being embarrassed. Tiny things like making myself say “Ich habe ein termin mit Laura” at the hairdresser instead of “I have an appointment with Laura” – which they would totally understand of course, but it’s so much better to attempt German. (and I’m sure I got tenses, articles and spellings wrong there, but the point is, I should say it anyway). Because otherwise, I just speak English and then I hear English in reply and how does that help?

And working is… work. I dunno. I’ve always worked. I like it. I get a lot of my personal identity out of the work I do. Maybe (probably) I identify more with being a writer-and-editor than I do with being a mum, for better or worse. I’ve done the latter for much longer, after all. So there’s that. Versus being a student, which I’m not exactly bad at, but maybe not great at either. I don’t know if I enjoy learning as much as… doing? Doing my job? Doing a job. Being a parent? Maybe I shouldn’t include parenting in the mix. It’s not something I can chose to do or not right now.

So working versus learning. It’s something familiar versus something new and challenging. But the familarity of work also has challenges within it. And, of course, I get paid for working. Whereas I have to pay to learn. Speaking to another expat recently (about a job), she said she didn’t feel 100% at home in Zurich until she joined the workforce here. And I get that.

Work can be fun

Work can be fun

Then again, there’s no doubt that learning more German will also help the assimilation process. And it will probably even enhance my career prospects in the long- or medium-term. Hell, maybe even in the shortish term if I can get to the stage where I could do basic translations/editing from German to English (with the help of Google no doubt!).

Work also stresses me. Quite a lot sometimes. Does language learning stress me? I think maybe not so much.

Assuming that I can, and will, work for the rest of my “working life”, but I can probably only learn German now, while we’re here in Switzerland (for however long that may be) I should probably take this opportunity… But if I have to pass on work to do so? Tough one. I guess I want to do a bit of both. But I don’t want to do a bad job on either. Hmm

I also have to give up some parenting time, particularly to do both. It’s quite a juggle. And time with friends? I haven’t yet attempted language learning while having a baby so that will also be interesting.

I read a really good article recently – Why Does Learning a new Language Feel Soo Bad? – about how we often feel it’s a moral failing if we haven’t mastered the local language. It really struck a chord with me. I don’t want to tie my self-worth up in German lessons. But I do seem to tie it up in the work I do (and in parenting, and maybe my social life). And now all these things are duking it out for my time. I’m not quite sure where that leaves me.

 

 

The start of something?

Dreams

I lit a little fire

Planted a small seed

maybe one will warm my heart

the other hunger feed

 

I’m being rather quiet

It’s not a lot like me

Trying to protect the spark, the soil

I guess that we shall see…

 

It’s hard getting nothing back

Sometimes you have to wait

and perhaps I’m even learning

about blooms that happen late

 

Autumn’s fallen, a time to reap

But I’ve just sown my bed

So I’ll have to lie in it awhile

see what’s up ahead

 

It’s easy enough to begin

‘specially when you start small

And ending’s a fine thing

But to continue… right now: that’s all

 

 

A Walk Down Memory Avenue
Making new memories... my boy walking to his last day at Kinderkrippe

Making new memories… my boy walking to his last day at Kinderkrippe

Another successful AirBnb holiday over the weekend in Strasbourg. It’s nice and oddly intimate to stay in someone’s family home. I’m not sure I would be comfortable with letting my space out in this way but I’m very glad others do it and so far, we’ve had some great experiences with AirBnb (what did we ever do before this? I guess we used to do these “farm stay” holidays when I was a kid – or rent a beachhouse with another family).

Being in someone’s house like that got me thinking of other houses I have known, both inside and out, throughout my life. As a child in the Melbourne suburb of Camberwell, I guess we spent a lot of time walking, riding bikes and driving (or being driven) along these streets of our immediate area, so the local houses formed a well-known backdrop to my childhood. As, indeed, did some houses further afield on common routes. (A friend recently wrote a lovely piece on this for the Punt Road Project – also documenting a Melbourne childhood.)

Of course we knew several families in our immediate neighbourhood, where the streets were named alphabetically: Allambie, Bringa, Carramar, Doonkoona, Ellaroo, Fordham, Gowar… Killarra. And sometimes you’d make a new school pal or mum would get chatting to a lady she met waiting at the Doctor’s surgery, or a family we knew would move house. And they would turn out to live, “just around the corner in Doonkoona Avenue…” And then another piece of the puzzle would fall into place. A house with a familar facade would now be populated by an acquaintance. And you’d get to see inside.

In our own street – Killarra Avenue – we got to the stage where we knew about half the families, I guess. From the top of the street down was: Deborah and her deaf parents (their doorbell dimmed the lights); the Tunnel-Joneses, who had those scented Strawberry Shortcake dolls and a climbing frame that became our rocket when we played G-Force; Mrs Dunn, who would always sponsor me for a few bucks in the MS Read-a-thon; The couple across the street with two sets of twins (!), Brian and Mary next door (mostly OK with us climbing the fence to retrieve a cricket ball), the Rileys – a bunch of teenage boys who’d play football on the road; The Mukerjees, whose house smelled like tinned tomatoes inside; the family who owned Jed, a huge rottweiler with a stub tail who was friendly… ish; Lizzie Davis – a girl two years older than me who I got to play with sometimes and whose back garden had two amazing treehouses that we were never allowed to use because they contained redbacks (or maybe she just found it too boring to play in them with a little kid like me) She had bunk beds and older sisters and they taught us how to play Murder In The Dark; Mr and Mrs Papodopulous whose garden was mostly concrete. Andrew, who some guy took a swing at when he went trick or treating one year. And finally Marty – our almost-constant companion – our mums would often share a glass of wine at the end of the day while we continued playing or watching TV.

Thinking about these streets recently, I realised that somewhere in my child’s mind, I felt like I’d be grown up once all the blanks were filled in – once I knew everyone and had been into all the houses in the area. Is that weird?

Extrapolating metaphorically though, I guess finding out who lives in the houses and what’s behind people’s facades – both physical and physiognomical – is the stuff of life. And even a child recognises that (especially a child both as wise and modest as myself!) I’m maybe halfway through my life now. How many houses have I entered? How many people and places do I “know”… Am I grown up yet?

It’s also, now I think about it, yet another reason why relocating is so fucking difficult and the culture shock can sting so bad – suddenly you really don’t know anyone in the houses. It’s all unfamiliar territory, you’re no longer grounded and there’s no Safety House (another Melbourne childhood thing) on the corner.

Another aspect of this, of course, is seeing my own kids begin to populate their world – our local neighbourhood in Zurich. My eldest is about to start kindergarten – equivalent to starting school in the UK or Australia, in terms of his age and the fact it’s compulsory attendance. There are 20 kids in his class: 10 “five-year-olds” and 10 “six-year-olds” (I think he would have been in a reception class of ~30 kids in London!). And, seeing it’s so small and there are loads of other kindergartens around, I assume all the children must live within spitting distance of the premises, so we’ll probably get to know a few local homes a bit better once friends are made and playdates happen. My son is already such a smart cookie, asking about street names, recognising landmarks and with his favourite things to spot en route to the pool or shops. It’s cool to see him start to put the pieces of his own local puzzle together. My sweet, smart little boy is growing up! When the time comes for him to take his own walk down memory strasse, I hope he’s got as good recollections of his childhood as I have of mine.

 

 

Six Months

 

Six months I’ve known you

182 days

I’ve seen you asleep and awake

in so many ways

 

That transformative moment

as your eyes roll and close

slipping between time

where do you go?

 

My beautiful, funny, round-headed thing

with your gurgles and growls

a patient, determined little one

Love: mine and all of ours

 

How many times have I looked at you

touched you, waited til

I see your belly expand, a hand twitch with life

so you’re alive still

 

I need new words for your vocabulary

and the way you move

Watching as you change each day

grow and improve

 

The love for a child

gentle. wild. free

the adventures and dangers to come… fatal cliffs… my heart!

But right now, you’re with me

 

 

 

Where the light gets in

These summer mornings

The sun hits the outside corner of the bedroom

Its lighthot fingers poking in

Through chinks in the curtains and shutters

Making a dot pattern here

and slanting slabs of liquid yellowwhite light there

The warmth!

It reminds me of something

Is it my grandparents’ house for Christmas holidays?

Those little wooden beds in the room I shared with James

Floral coverlets with machined-diamond stitching, and fuzzy wool blankets with those satin edges — both pushed to the floor on hot nights.

Nana made us breakfast

The oriental tin full of her home-made museli. The dry smell of oats and apricots

Perfectly flecked Vegemite on hot buttered toast

The noise of the planes flying over, shaking the summer morning air.

Or is it holiday houses in MacRae?

Houses rented or owned by my friends’ parents, or someone’s Aunty Dot, or Alison’s sister.

That same feeling of waking in a warm room with my brother

not having needed more than a sheet overnight

The languid feeling of summer holidays

Knowing I’ll swim today.

 

 

To the mom who blahblahblah

 

20150625_123559 (2)

There’s three different parenting no-nos in this picture alone

I am so bored of mum blogs and clickbait parenting articles telling me what to do, what not to do, 5 things to avoid and why I’m not coping (but here’s how). Yeah right. And the snarky comments. But if you can’t beat em, join em, so here’s my snarky response…

To the mum who said she liked the blog about not judging others then went on to say “except I just get so upset when I see mums like the one I saw today who did xyz” you are an idiot

To the mom who asked about changing her surname and mentioned in a longwinded story that one minor reason was a guy at work who’d asked if she was One of Those Feminists but she explained to him “no and oh how we laughed” you suck – aren’t we all “those” kind of feminists? The kind who believe in equality for women?

To the parents who post up that story about secondary drowning at the start of each summer. Stop it

To the dad who links to the latest pseudoscience story pertaining to something you should or shouldn’t do because it could KILL YOUR BABY or at the very least CAUSE IRREPARABLE DAMAGE even though you no longer have a baby but, like, a 4 year old. You’re just scaring people

In fact, to all the folks who link to stuff that’s supposedly “helpful” but is just some horrible scare story that makes the rest of us feel terrified and/or inadequate: please think before you click share. Please. Just for a moment. We’re not idiots, we could find this stuff online if we wanted to. Who are you helping?

To the people who crap on about how dangerous Cry-it-out is: Are you honestly suggesting that any of your peers would be doing this unless they felt like they really, really, really had to? Do you genuinely think their middle-class children with well-educated parents will end up like those Romanian orphans? OK then, shut up.

To the humans who post all that kind of stuff – who are you hoping will read it? Surely you and all your mates, just by dint of the the fact you’re articulate and social-media savvy enough and you care enough to be reading parenting articles at all, means you’re probably not doing The Thing, or are all too aware of why you are doing The Thing.

Even if all these supposed People Who Are Willfully Doing The Thing exist, they would never read the article you just put up anyway.

I hate this kid-in-danger-from-its-terrible-parents porn that seems to do the rounds. It’s a sick sort of thrill to read this stuff and think Oh My Gosh, these PARENTS! What are they doing?! Thank god that’s not me or anyone I know. In that case, why post it? If you honestly thought a friend or acquaintance was doing this shit, either confront them personally or button it.

IT’s NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS HOW ANYONE ELSE IS RAISING THEIR KIDS. BUTT OUT. Unless genuine harm or abuse is going on, in which case you should report it. Yep.

My advice (is it completely hypocritical to offer advice after all this? ha): Do what you feel is right for you, your family and your kid/s (probably  in that order). Follow the stuff you like, ignore everything else. If you don’t know what “feels” right, well… you do.

(This is not to say never share any of those parenting articles. I actually like a lot of them, particularly the gentle parenting stuff. And I find some of the advice useful. But all the scaremonger, don’t do this, do that, IRREPARABLE DAMAGE stuff and the passive-aggressive BS comments such as “oh it’s just her kids I worry about” can fuck off).

 

I wrote the above in a fit of pique earlier this week and had been debating whether to publish it when a similar post from my fave mummy blogger arrived in my inbox. Her piece, When did we start trusting experts over our own eyeballs comes across as much less nasty than mine! Which, in turn made me start questioning why I was so angry. Simple answer: fear. These stories about the myriad, unthought-of ways in which I may damage or even kill my kids scares the shit out of me.

Like everyone, I’m far from being the world’s most perfect parent (although I’d like to think I come close to being the perfect parent for my own children) and it’s so easy to focus on all the stuff you’re not doing, rather than thinking about the stuff you are. And, I guess, we have to be ever-vigilant. (Do we? I dunno. Maybe we should just relax and trust our own common sense?). Anyway, I’m about to start babyproofing my house because Baby S is getting increasingly wriggly, and when I start reading safety articles online, well they’re just full of things I haven’t done (and kind of can’t be bothered with) and a whole host of new dangers I hadn’t even considered. Gah! But I managed to steer one child through early childhood without any major mishaps, so… yeah.

I also realise that my reaction to people posting “aggressively helpful” articles is really my problem, not theirs. What one mum sees as “raising awareness” another mum sees as unnecessary scaremongering. So I’m wondering how I can address my attitude to that. I think taking a Facebook holiday when I’m feeling my anxiety rise is probably a good idea. But that would result in an increase to my FOMO anxiety! Once again, life’s tough in the first world.

 

 

Easter Eggs Are Hollow

Angel of Chillon

I wrote this post a while ago but didn’t publish it. What do they say about not discussing religion or politics? The same probably goes for parenting too, but what the hey.

I recently had a experience where one of the parents at my son’s Krippe (nursery/daycare) spoke to me. In English. This is enough of a rare occurrence that I was perhaps overly receptive, or perhaps not. Anyway, the conversation rapidly devolved into her asking me about which religion I followed and when I said none, she persisted in pushing the “But how can you not believe in god?” thing, which made me rather uncomfortable. As you will see from the below, my beliefs are “in progress” and so far rather hazy. It’s not something I think about all that much, to be honest. Although, a few times recently I have found myself craving a bit more spirituality and wondering about how to introduce some sort of religious-type structure or ceremony to my life. Whether this stems from having children or getting older or whatever, who knows? Anyway, here goes.

This year we celebrated Easter with a short hop to the French part of Switzerland (who needs passports when you can drive three hours and be in a different-language region?!) It was great. An ideal little holiday with mountain scenery, Lac Leman (or Lake Geneva) and a day spent wandering around the medieval Chateau de Chillon.

However, when I say “celebrate” Easter, what’s to celebrate? As we were driving home, I started feeling a bit spiritually hollow as I pondered how or indeed why, without being religious and with no family around, do we “celebrate” Easter? If I don’t believe in god or the Easter bunny, what is there to differentiate this holiday from any others? Are we celebrating time off work? I’m not even employed! There’s no break from motherhood, of course, especially without family around to help out. In our affluent lifestyle there’s no need for feasting and non-religious fasting seems a little pointless. We can, and do, eat chocolate all the time. We can, and do, have “special meals” all the time. What is the point of it all?

Essentially, I like the idea of tradition and history. Sort of. Hey, I just spent a day wandering around a medieval castle! But without an underlying spiritual faith and, in fact, with more of a leftwing attitude that religion seems to be involved with more evil than good in the world, it seems a bit, well, silly to try to incorporate somewhat gristly stories of a man dying and being reborn into my children’s lives or my own. Plenty of time for them to hear about it in school (I guess?) I feel like I know the stories pretty well. I actually did a lot of Sunday Scholarship in my time. Would it be too weird if my children grew up not really hearing The Easter Story or other religious tales?

Of course, there’s Spring and the other seasons. And after all, Easter is essentially a pagan springtime ritual dressed up in Christ’s clothing. But all that pagan stuff – well, I like it but I I feel a bit too… uncomfortable? unsure? ignorant? embarrassed? to become especially worked up about it. And without the full commitment, is it worth it?

My modern malaise means I’m also lazy when it comes to spiritual matters. I don’t really want to study just to become spiritual. Although, saying that, I suppose contemplation and bettering yourself, trying to attain a higher sense of being IS a big tenet of most spiritual belief systems.

I want to say it doesn’t feel like I should have to work at it, but hard work and experiencing discomfort is kind of the essence of much religion. It’s not meant to be easy is it? It’s something you are supposed to put time and effort in to. It could even be argued that religions were invented to give reason (and/or reward) for people enduring crap stuff. But our society is all so easy-street and secular. It seems crazy to put up with hardship for the sake of a system of beliefs you haven’t chosen. In the first world, where there’s not grinding poverty or backbreaking work and the food and chocolate flows easily, it’s no wonder religiousness is dying out.

But I was left feeling as though I’d like to do something. I mean, without some sort of framework for the years and the holidays and my life, it’s all bit desolate. Can I put an ad in the Classifieds? Wanted: Non-Religious, non-ridiculous form of spirituality to practise with my husband and kids. Must not require too much serious effort or devotion, however some ceremony appreciated, as is dressing up. Suggestions on the back of an envelope…

Oh, and as for the English-speaking god-botherer mum – I did come up with the perfect answer, about three hours later: Your lack of tolerance for my lack of religion is precisely what puts me off being part of one.

I also like this quote:

For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can’t readily accept the God formula, the big answers don’t remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.”
― Charles Bukowski